


don't know how to be (without you)

by strawberryfinn



Category: One Direction (Band), X Factor RPF
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Multi, Terminal Illnesses, this is not a happy story but this type of love lasts forever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryfinn/pseuds/strawberryfinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m sick,” Zayn says, eyes blank and vacant.</p><p>And Niall’s world comes crashing down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't know how to be (without you)

**Author's Note:**

> This story actually destroyed me. Any feedback would be so appreciated—my brother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, so I’m writing from personal experience.
> 
> This is the first Ziall story I ever wrote, and it's one of my favourite things I've ever written as well.

  


“I’m sick,” Zayn says, eyes blank and vacant. He stands at the edge of the door and the boys look up at him. Harry and Louis stop their bickering and Liam freezes from where he’s on Twitter, his fingers stopping their typing on his phone, and Niall stops eating.

  


“What?” Liam asks, forehead furrowed in confusion, voice heavy with alarm.

  


“The doctor says I’ve got something called acute myeloid leukemia.” Zayn stumbles over the words—they’re unfamiliar and strange in his mouth, and Harry stops poking Louis to really listen.

  


Niall’s heart is thudding, heavy in his chest, and his vision seems to be ebbing and flowing. The sandwich he holds in his hands goes in and out of focus, and he tries to put all his attention on remembering how to breathe.

  


“You’re gonna be okay, though, right?” Harry manages, his voice a small, high-pitched squeak. “Right, Zayn?” His green eyes flash as he tugs on a curl of brown hair and looks at the darker boy with concern.

  


“I don’t know,” Zayn replies, looking scared. Because yeah, Zayn’s been sick, but it can’t be _this_. Because _acute myeloid leukemia_ is cancer, and none of them know the first thing about cancer except that it’s _bad_ and people _die_. Zayn’s eyes are empty and his voice is hollow and Niall wants to hold him and kiss every bit of him better. But Niall can’t move.

  


“I’m sick,” Zayn says, eyes blank and vacant.

  


And Niall’s world comes crashing down.  


+

  
Niall’s world crumples slowly.  


It doesn’t shatter overnight. It fragments slowly and drops into pieces slowly—and losing Zayn is like losing baby teeth—it hurts, slowly, and a little at a time.

  


It’s one thing after another, slowly building on top of one another until they collect into a giant mess that weighs him down so much he has trouble breathing.

  


The other boys coddle Zayn, treat him differently, with Louis curbing his cheeky spark and Liam’s eyes shining with concern as he offers to carry Zayn’s things, and Harry feeding Zayn as though he’s a starving child from a third-world country, but Niall doesn’t.

  


Niall kisses Zayn with the same ferocity, launches himself at Zayn with the same aggressiveness he’d had before Zayn ever said he was sick. He wants Zayn to know that _it doesn’t matter_ and _this changes nothing_ and _I will always feel this about you—now, maybe even more_. When they’re laying in bed, arms wrapped loosely around one another, legs entwined in rumpled sheets, Niall’s head rested on Zayn’s tattooed chest, Zayn murmurs a “thank you.”

  


Niall shuts his eyes and whispers, “I love you,” so quietly he can barely hear it.

  


Zayn replies, “I know,” and that is that.  


+

  
With Zayn’s news, Harry and Louis get even closer if even possible. They’re inseperable, as though they have suddenly realized _anyone_ can get cancer and anyone can die, so if Zayn can get it, why can’t Louis? Or Harry? They grow into one another, like vines, folding and twisting togther and blurring the lines separating who they are. Harry and Louis spend all their time together, cracking jokes, eating lunch, laughing until their stomachs hurt—and Liam looks on with quiet concern.  


Niall starts hating all of them.

  


Niall knows that they all mean well and it’s not fair to expect them to help him carry this load, but he can’t help but also think that Zayn doesn’t need them. Zayn only needs Niall and Niall intends to be there for him.  


+

  
Zayn starts chemotherapy and it’s painful to watch.  


He throws up _allthetime_ and whines _allthetime_ and everything in his body hurts allthetime and Niall doesn’t know what to do.

  


So he curls in next to Zayn in his hospital bed and lets himself breathe in Zayn’s scent of cologne and boy and the undertone of fatigue. Zayn’s fingers drift over Niall’s face, and Niall lets himself believe. He lets himself believe that everything will turn out right, and this is just a bump in the road, and Zayn will be fine. Zayn will be fine and _they_ will be fine.  


+

  
Zayn’s eyelashes, the ones dark as night that are the envy of their fangirls everywhere, fall out the same night Zayn loses his hair.  


When the boys topple in for visiting hours in the hospital with Louis punching Harry in the ribs to get dibs on seeing Zayn first, they all roll to a stop and stare in disbelief.

  


Harry takes a look at Zayn’s pale, smooth head, and bursts into tears.

  


Liam walks over to Zayn and gives him a hug to try to make things better and jokes that maybe when his quiff comes back in, it’ll be even softer. Louis tells Zayn he’s never been more handsome, and then takes off after Harry, who’s run out of the room. Liam stammers something unintelligible and follows.

  


Niall clambers onto Zayn’s bed—his side of the bed—and just breathes.

  


“You want to talk about it?” he murmurs, and when Zayn says no, Niall is almost relieved.  


+

  
On one of Zayn’s good nights, he and Niall scale the hospital and find their way to the roof of the building. Niall unrolls a hospital blanket on the hard cement on the upper floor, and they lie there together, watching the stars. Niall’s head is nestled in the crook of Zayn’s arm where it has always belonged, and Zayn sighs in comfort, alabaster head gleaming under the night sky.  


“Are you afraid?” Niall’s voice breaks the silence, and there’s a waver in his tone, and Zayn looks at him.

  


“Come here,” Zayn says, and Niall shifts, moving his head towards Zayn. Zayn presses a hard kiss against Niall’s lips, and Niall kisses him back as a wordless _of course_.

  


Zayn doesn’t answer the question, just continues, “I’m happiest when I’m with you, Nialler.”

  


And Niall envelops himself in the dark of the night around them and the comforting beating of Zayn’s heart. He laces his fingers through Zayn’s in an answer. Niall knows that here is where he belongs, and here’s where he promises he’ll stay.  


+

  
The morning Louis answers his phone and his eyes fog up and look glassy and his mouth draws into a tight, impossible line, Niall knows what has happened.  


“Thank you for letting us know, Mrs. Malik,” Louis says, voice cracking as it arches onto a higher note, and Niall knows.

  


Harry is the second to notice Louis’s expression and he starts _screaming_ and Liam is holding him and trying to calm him down and looking at Niall with a sympathy that Niall _despises_.

  


Because Liam, straight-laced Liam with his good intentions and responsible nature and his ability and desire to say everything right and fix everything in his path hasn’t been able to fix this. And he can’t pretend to understand how Niall feels.

  


As the other boys are crying together and starting on their mourning processes, Niall walks up and leaves the room. He thinks about feverish fingers on the stretch of his stomach, full lips, and a secretive smile that Zayn only shared with him.  


+

  
Niall throws all of the CDs on the ground, not caring where they fall and careen against the ground, until he finally finds the one he’s searching for. It’s from a day at the beach the past summer, when Louis had decided he’d take up filming their adventures because _why the hell not_ and he pushes the disc into his computer and blows up the movie full screen.  


In it, the boys are laughing as they run on the beach and they’re so _young_ —Liam and Harry throw sand at each other with glee, and Louis turns the camera to film his own face, his blue eyes shining under the sun.

  


“Oi! There’s our pair of lovebugs!” comes Louis’s cheerful voice from behind the camera, and the video is unsteady and poorly filmed, but it focuses on Niall and Zayn, sitting together at the campfire, a large towel over both of their shoulders. Zayn’s fingering Niall’s blonde hair absently, and Niall is looking at Zayn like he’s seeing him for the first time.

  


“Oh shove off, Louis.” Zayn’s voice is smooth like a brick of dark chocolate, and he folds his fingers gently underneath Niall’s chin like he always has.

  


“Come on now,” demands Louis impatiently, “put on a show for the camera. Cheeky bastards.”

  


“We have a little more class than that, Lou.” Niall’s voice is worn and tired, but not at all angry.

  


“Leave them alone, Tommo,” comes Liam’s voice from offscreen, and Harry defensively butts in as well, “Lou, let them be. They’re cute when they try to be secretive.”

  


“Where’s the fun in that? Are you chicken?” Louis’s mischievous tone dominates the picture, and on the screen of his computer, Niall sees Zayn’s eyes soften in defeat.

  


“I’m gonna kill you,” Zayn threatens Louis, and flips off the towel onto Niall as he stands up. Niall watches his movie self squawk under the towel, and then the image slips and becomes grainy before coming into focus again. Louis has thrown the camera to Niall, and Niall’s managed to catch it.

  


There’s a flicker of doppleganger-Niall’s white blonde hair in the camera before Zayn’s face fills the entire screen. Niall remembers how his fingers felt wrapped around the videocamera as he stared straight up at Zayn.

  


“Be right back, babes,” Zayn promises, and he starts off after Louis, but turns to stare back at Niall mid-run. Zayn’s face fills the entirety of Niall’s computer screen—his head turned over his shoulder, his eyelashes full and dark, his brown eyes bright and full of life.

  


With a hoarse sob, Niall pauses the video there. He touches the pixelated image of Zayn, brushing his fingers over Zayn’s face on his computer and making himself remember the scratch of Zayn’s scruff, the way Zayn’s cheekbones felt under his fingers.

  


At least for that moment, Niall’s living in that summer day he wishes would never end.

  


_“Be right back, babes.”_

  


And Zayn will always come back for him.  


+

  
When Zayn shows up that night at his bedroom door, Niall is expecting him. Zayn looks the same as always, full lips, dark, expansive eyebrows, bright, expressive eyes, and his lithe, sinewy body. Zayn looks the way he did before he was _sick_ , when Niall first fell in love: full quiff of hair, impossibly long eyelashes.  


“I’m sorry,” Niall says, pulling his covers up around him. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t watch them bury you.”

  


Zayn’s mouth pulls itself into a thin, straight line. His head is downcast and his skin is stained with soil. He doesn’t say anything, but with one step, he’s there next to Niall, so familiar and so unexpectedly _fragile_.

  


When Zayn kisses him, Niall swallows dirt. Zayn tastes unfamiliar and cold, and he smells like damp earth. Zayn’s eyes are hollowed and his face is gaunt, and Niall can feel the ridges of his defined cheekbones underneath his fingers.

  


“I’ve missed you,” Niall manages in a whisper, between cold, coarse kisses.

  


Zayn’s body is cold and bloodless and even in the dark, Niall can see how pale he is.

  


Zayn breaks a kiss to look at him. “I shouldn’t be here. Niall, you need to let me go,” is his low reply, and Niall feels his heart drop out from his chest.

  


“I don’t know how to be without you,” Niall tells him, his voice strained. “I _can’t_.”

  


He doesn’t know what to say after that, so instead he thrusts his tongue into Zayn’s mouth, pushing so hard that he stands up and jumps into Zayn’s grasp. Zayn’s arms are on his legs, supporting Niall’s body, and Niall kisses him and kisses him until he can’t breathe—until he almost convinces himself that _this_ is real. Niall can survive off of Zayn’s exhale; he inhales in dirt and soil and twigs, and runs his hands through Zayn’s limp, dying hair.

  


When he finally breaks off so that his lungs don’t burst and his eyes stop watering and he can catch a bit of much-needed oxygen, Zayn looks vaguely disappointed but he doesn’t say anything.

  


Niall gets back into his bed and pulls the covers around himself.

  


Niall feels a weight shift his mattress down, and then Zayn’s familiar body is there behind him, spooning him like he always has, like he’s always belonged—almost like he never even left.

  


And with Zayn’s frigid body next to his, Zayn’s heavy, muscled arms wrapped around Niall’s bare chest, Niall wonders if he ever even knew how to exist alone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave any feedback. I'm brand new to AO3 and the One Direction fandom and open to suggestions. Thank you for reading. x


End file.
